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Let us continue in worship by giving attention to the reading of God's word as it is recorded in the second book of Samuel, the second chapter, beginning the reading at the verse number 12. "Abner the son of Ner and the servants of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul went out from

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Mahanaim to Gibeon. And Joab the son of Zeruiah and the servants of David went out and met them at the pool of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool and the other on the other side

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of the pool. And Abner said to Joab, 'Let the young men arise and play before us.' And Joab said, 'Let them arise.' Then they arose and passed over by number twelve for Benjamin and Ish-bosheth the son

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of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David. And each caught his opponent by the head and thrust his sword in his opponent's side. So they fell down together. For that place was called Hel-kath-hazurim, which is at Gibeon.

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And the battle was very fierce that day. And Abner and the men of Israel were beaten before the servants of David. And the three sons of Zeruiah were there, Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Now Asahel was as swift of foot as a wild gazelle.

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And Asahel pursued Abner, and as he went he turned neither to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner. Then Abner looked behind him and said, 'Is it you, Asahel?' And he answered, 'It is I.'

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Abner said to him, 'Turn aside to your right hand or to your left, and seize one of the young men and take his spoil.' But Asahel would not turn aside from following him. And Abner said again to Asahel, 'Turn aside from following me.

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Why should I smite you to the ground? How then could I lift up my face to your brother Joab?' But he refused to turn aside. Therefore Abner smote him in the belly with the butt of his spear, so that the spear came

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out at his back. And he fell there and died where he was. And all who came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died stood still. But Joab and Abishai pursued Abner, and as the sun was going down they came to the hill

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of Ammah, which lies before Giyah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon. And the Benjaminites gathered themselves together behind Abner and became one band and took their stand on the top of a hill. And Abner called to Joab, 'Shall the sword devour forever?

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Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you bid your people turn from the pursuit of their brethren?' And Joab said, 'As God lives, if you had not spoken, surely the men would have given up the pursuit of their brethren in the morning.'

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So Joab blew the trumpet, and all the men stopped and pursued Israel no more, nor did they fight any more. And Abner and his men went all that night through the Araba, they crossed the Jordan, and marching the whole forenoon they came to Mahanaim.

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Joab returned from the pursuit of Abner, and when he had gathered all the people together, there were missing of David's servers, nineteen men and Asahel. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Amen.

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Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The war between David and Ish-bosheth began by the side of the pool at Gibeon.

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Joab, the leader of David's forces, came with his troops to one side of the pool, and Abner, the leader of Ish-bosheth's forces, came to the other side of the pool. And Abner said, 'Let the young men arise and play before us.' Now that sounds like a very innocuous invitation.

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It was in fact a horrible suggestion. What he was saying was, 'Let twelve of yours and twelve of ours fight it out here, and we'll watch the sport. And not only will we watch the sport, but this will cause the bloodlust of our troops

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to be increased, and then we may go to war.' Sounds like a hideous, uncivilized suggestion, but it is in fact no different from what we do today. We always seem to need some incident, some spark, some event which pushes us over the

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edge into conflict. The British did not attack the Boers until they had ravaged their women. We did not steal territory from Mexico until there was an Alamo to be remembered. We did not attack weakened Spain until there was a Maine to be remembered.

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We didn't go to war against the Japanese until Pearl Harbor had been sacrificed. We Christians, you see, are always very moral about our wars. So twenty-four young men came forward and killed each other, and then everybody had a cause, and the war started, and the clear waters of Gibeon ran red.

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Now out of the war we focus this morning on but a single incident, and it concerns two men, Abner, a very experienced military man, heavy with honors and also heavy with armor, bore on his body the scars of many a field of conflict. He was a professional soldier, very wise in the ways of war.

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And the other principal character is a young man named Aethel, who was the younger brother of Joab. He was naive. He was green.

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He didn't know the tricks of the military trade, but he was also very ambitious and anxious to earn his military stripes. And somehow in the crazy pattern of the conflict, Aethel came upon Abner and began to pursue him, thinking no doubt, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if when the battle was over I could go home

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with the head of the enemy commander on the end of my spear? Why even King David would praise me for that." We have to admire to a certain degree, don't we, the enthusiasm of this young Aethel. And I think the enthusiasm and the passion and the vigor of our young people still catches

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our fancy. We are thrilled by the dreams they dream and the zeal with which they plunge into the affairs of their lives. But I would like to say to our young people this morning, beware the thrill of that kind

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of impetuosity. It is only fools who walk in where even the angels fear to tread. I spent an afternoon about nine months ago on the campus of Kent State University, that place where one of the blackest days in America's history was made as black as it is, when young

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men and women were shot to death in the midst of what was supposed to be a sophisticated educational environment. I suppose we'll never really know everything that happened there that day, but we do know this.

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On one side there were a lot of very passionate young people, and they were bearing blue jeans and t-shirts and carrying stones. And on the other side were a lot of very passionate young people, and they were wearing the Army's uniform and they were carrying rifles.

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On both sides there was impetuosity. On both sides there was lack of restraint. Those stones that were being thrown were not pebbles, they were as big as baseballs. And so at last, out of the midst of all of this, out of the vortex of this youth and

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this passion and this vigor and this impetuosity came bloodshed. What else could have come? I guess what I want to say to our young people this morning is, remember Asahel. I know that sometimes when you young people look at the faces of older people, you scorn

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their timidity. And sometimes you're quite right in doing that. There are a lot of older people who, quite frankly, have lost their courage and ought to be ashamed.

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There are older people who are gripped by things out of yesterday, who live in that gray twilight that never knows either victory or defeat. There are those who have about them no spark and no passion. But young people, I would ask you to remember this too, that older people know more about

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youth than younger people know about age. That's because older people have been young and you have not yet been old. That is, they bring to life the best of them - not only a passion and an enthusiasm, but also a sense of soberness and of wise prudentiality.

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If I could have for every young person within the sound of my voice this morning two wishes, those wishes would be these. First, that they might come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. And second, that they might never lose their passion, but that mingled with that passion,

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there would be a wisdom and a deep and profound fear of the Lord. I ask our young people to remember Asahel. Well, as the conflict went on, Abner became aware of the fact that Asahel was pursuing him, to make certain he calls over his shoulder, "Is that you, Asahel?"

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"It is I." "Turn aside," he says, "fight someone on your own level of competence. Pick out a young man as green as you are and let it be a fair contest." But the youngster has his dreams, you see.

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He's got his hopes and his ambitions, and so he pursues relentlessly. Now Abner, like any commander, is moving about the field, encouraging his troops, motivating him, leaping over this body or moving around this bush, and it begins to take its toll and the old man begins to tire and his breath becomes, each breath, a little more difficult

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than the one before. And all the time, the young Asahel, who is described as being more fleet than a gazelle, gets closer and closer until finally he has Abner in the place where he wants him. And he comes from behind with his spear lifted high, plummeting down upon the older soldier.

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But alas, Abner knows the ways of hand-to-hand combat too well for Asahel. He uses one of the oldest tricks of the trade. He stops suddenly and pushes his spear back under his arm, and the Bible says that it went into Asahel's belly and penetrated his body, and he fell and he died.

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And the Scriptures note that all who came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died stood still. And at the end of the day, when the battle report was written, the Scriptures note, "And there were lost to the forces of David, nineteen men and Asahel."

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It's touching, isn't it, to notice how God remembered Asahel? There's this wonderful specificity in the love of God. St. Augustine said, "God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love." And it is true.

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God remembers even Asahel. This is the reason we find such wonderful specificity in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus doesn't talk about juvenile delinquency. He talks about a young son who ran away from home.

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Jesus doesn't talk about evangelism. He talks about a shepherd who had a hundred sheep and one of them became lost. So it shouldn't surprise us that the Holy Spirit of God would inspire the writer here in 2 Samuel to notice at the end of the day there were lost to the forces of David, nineteen

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men and, oh yes, one young boy, Asahel. This marvelous particularity in the love of God. I remember back in the presidential campaign of 1968, there was a very controversial commercial that was presented by the Nixon side.

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It was attempting to display his view with regard to the Vietnam War. And at the end of this brief little television commercial, the camera focused on the helmet of one of our soldiers fighting in Vietnam and scrawled across the front of the helmet was the word "love," L-O-V-E, love.

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And then the camera began to move away and you saw the very serious and concerned face of the young man who was wearing the helmet. That's the note on which the commercial concluded. Well, some of the advisors of President Nixon didn't like that commercial.

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They thought it was too hippie-ish, that it brought something into the commercial which really wasn't a part of the administration's plan. The American Legion, some of them, raised a hue and cry that it was an improper sentiment to be brought to a place of battle.

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And so it was decided that the commercial would be removed from the television airways, but not before it had already been shown in a couple of test areas. And one mother, seeing that commercial, wrote a letter to President Nixon. And she said she was thrilled to see her son in the commercial there at the end.

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And could she please have a television tape of the commercial? And she signed her name, "Mrs. William Love." See, it wasn't an emotion. It was his name.

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Of course, we don't know what he might have felt when he scribbled it across the front of his helmet. Maybe he was thinking of more than his name. My point this morning is this.

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Regardless of the confusion on what was written on the helmet, the word "loved" could have been written there, because God remembers all the world's Asahels, even on battlefields. They're never outside the specificity of His passion. And if the young Asahels of the world mean so much to God, then they also ought to mean

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much to us. And that's the reason we have a Veterans Day, when we remember those amongst us who have worn the colors and who are still with us living or are gone from us dead. Of course, how we remember the living and the dead differ.

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The Asahels who have died, well, in a very real sense, they are beyond us now. They are beyond even our prayers. The scriptures teach us in Hebrews 9 that it is appointed to all men once to die, and then the judgment.

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Each of these young Asahels has appeared before God and been judged. And judgment is not some instantaneous thing. Judgment begins in life. It is not a sudden disclosure on the part of God.

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It is the inevitable working out of the course of a life. And that judgment for those who have gone on is already of the past, and there is no way in which our prayers or our thoughts can influence it. And yet, as Presbyterians, we believe in the communion of the saints.

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We believe that there is no separation to those who are in Christ Jesus. So I would suggest to you this morning that just as when your loved one goes to a far city, you continue to remember him in prayer so you can remember this one who has gone to Jerusalem.

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And just as you talk about your children with those who love, so you can talk to the Father God about your children lost from you now. I mean, whenever the heart of a parent reaches out to the heart of the parent God, there has to be a hearing there.

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And in that sense, we can remember our Asahels before God. But more important, of course, is how we think of those Asahels who are still amongst us. Do we pray for our young men and women in service? Do we remember urgent ministry to them?

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Do we make sure as a congregation of God's people that no one ever goes forth from this church into the service of his country without first knowing the service of his Savior? Do you pray and thank God for those who stood here today and who stood under arms at one time or another?

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Do you pray for our young women and men in the Strategic Air Command and NATO and on the far-flung frontiers of the world? Do you pray for our astronauts? Do you know that we as Presbyterians have 230 chaplains who work with military personnel?

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You know, parachurch groups are able to focus in on their delightful little specialties. It is only given to the church to have the broad-ranging ministry that reaches into every area of life, including the military. And did you know that amongst our chaplains, the casualty rate has always been very high?

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I mean, they're out there in the front lines when they're called to be in such a place. And they hold the dying Asahels and they clutch them close. And this kid who's very much afraid and who doesn't understand what is happening looks up and he sees a smiling face and on the helmet he sees a cross.

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And he hears a voice say, "Son, you remember the words, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'" And that's what the young man hears as he's being held by the chaplain who loves him.

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And his eyes close and things become dark and all the sound of the war disappears away. And when he opens his eyes, he sees another smiling face. And he sees the cross again. And he sees one who, looking deep into his eyes, says, "I am the resurrection and the

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life and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. And you are mine. And as you were hugged by one who loved me there, so I hug you here. And I will love you always and all is well."

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Do you pray for our chaplains with the heavy ministries which are theirs to touch and support and encourage our Asahels? That's the question and that's the message for this Veterans Day. You see, three thousand years ago, Almighty God, the Father of Nations, saw fit to write

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upon the pages of Scripture a memorial minute. There were lost to the forces of David nineteen men and Asahel. And by writing that, God says to us, "I have not forgotten and you should not forget either. There is a time and a place for remembering."

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I have no theory of civilization. I don't know whether we as a people are getting better or worse. But I do understand this, that somehow nothing happens in this world without sacrifice. That good is produced only out of pain and hurt.

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It says in the Scripture passage that those who came to the place where Asahel fell and died stopped fighting. Peace came about because of what had happened. Something was gained and that's my hope.

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Oh, yet we trust that somehow good will be the final goal of ill. I'll make no mistake about it. I hate war. I hate the crimson stain with which it mars the seas.

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I hate the poison breath it puts upon the wind. I hate the fences of bodies with which it girdles the globe. I hate it for the men it maims and the children it orphans and the brides it widows and the betrothed it keeps from the altar and the father it makes sonless and the mother it

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robs of its child. I hate it for the unborn children who die in their parents' loins. I hate it for the evil passions it unleashes upon the world. I hate it for the good will it destroys and the truth it perverts and the murder it decorates

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and the lie it exalts and the brotherhood it despoils and the black damp of suspicion that it hangs like a black wreath all around this plundered planet of ours. I hate it with everything that's in me. I hate it.

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But I believe, I believe in the angel song and I believe that right will finally triumph over might and I believe in the fatherhood of God and I believe in the brotherhood of man and I cast my vote with the prince of peace. So I hate and I believe that there will come a time when nations will break their swords

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into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and when men shall learn war no more forever. I believe that out of all the ugliness and tragedy of the death of the world's Asahels, some good will come.

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Sacrifice you see is so written into the warp and woof of the human experience that even the bravest Asahel who ever lived, the cleanest Asahel who ever was, the only perfect Asahel, he too had to die upon a hill. Not hill 609, not at Da Nang, but a place called Calvary.

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And that's the thought I want to leave with you today. It's best summed by that father and his little boy who were walking the darkened streets back in 1943, the closing days of World War II. And as they walked down the streets, the little boy turned to his daddy and said, "What are

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those banners hanging in people's windows? The ones with the blue borders and the white centers and the stars in the middle, what do they mean?" And the father said, "For every star, that family has sent a father or a brother or a

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sister or a son or a daughter into the war, and they are fighting and they are dying for us." And as they moved along, they came to a vacant lot. And as the little boy looked up into the night sky, he saw scintillating purely there, the

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evening star. And he said, "Look, Daddy, there's a star in God's window also." And his father said, "Yes, my son. For God, too, has sent a boy to fight and die for us."

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That is why God remembers Asahel's. And that is why we must remember them, too. So today we recall those happy hearts, those who are amongst us, and those who are gone from amongst us.

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And if God's Asahel had to die, that something good might be won, then somehow that makes it easier for us to believe that out of the deaths of our Asahels, something good will come. Something will work out.

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Will we trust that good will be the final goal of ill? And these things I learned from 19 men and Asahel. Let us pray. We remember them before thee.

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In the silence of these minutes, we lift before thee the roll call of our Asahels. God bless them, and God bless their companions who still stand amongst us. Let them know of our gratitude, and bless them, God, for their seeking, as best they understood it, to offer themselves for what we believe to be good.

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We pray our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. [Music]